Sharing knowledge is why I love safe cave diving. Sharing
accurate information to aid learning so that you too can have the
opportunity to experience the beautiful cenotes and underwater cave
systems of the Riviera Maya is what my entire cave diving career has
been about. Lucky and blessed to cave dive for so many years, now
I share.

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Saturday, May 18, 2013

A dive into the darkness in Mexico

Cave diving is dark, dangerous, and mesmerising. The
cenotes of Mexico's Yucatan offer an underwater realm renowned among savvy
scuba divers for their stark beauty and seemingly limitless exploration
potential. Dive in with us to discover the secret grottoes of Riviera Maya's
ancient underground passages

By Brandon Cole, Storee.se

Published: 00:01 March 1, 2012

Image
Credit: Brandon Cole/Storee.se

The ancient Maya believed
the openings served as portals to Xibalba, the Mayan underworld.

The seat belt of the four-door pickup cuts into my
shoulder as I bounce down a rutted path through a buzzing, sticky swathe of
Yucatan jungle. With the truck bed full of air tanks and scuba gear, I’m
rolling shoulder to shoulder with Nat Wilson, an Arizona-born cave diver who moved
to the Riviera Maya to feed his addiction for underwater exploration in the
world’s largest underground river systems.

As we drive, he’s holding court on the mythology behind
the freshwater-filled caverns that perforate this landscape. “The ancient Maya
believed the openings served as portals to Xibalba, the Mayan underworld,” he
says, before slamming on the brakes and swerving to the shoulder. “You see
that?” he interjects, his index finger pointing out the side window. “Through
this hole in the trees, see its tail?” I look harder; fairly impressed that he
could spot anything through the dense underbrush, let alone from a moving
vehicle. And then I see it, a small blue bird with a scissor-like tail.

“That’s the motmot,” Wilson exclaims. And without missing
a beat, he launches back into his previous story, adding that the Mayans
considered motmots to be the guardians of the cenotes. “In reality, they hang
around the caverns because it’s the only access to fresh water out here,”
Wilson says. And these days we cave divers watch for the birds to find the
entrances.

Of course, as a long-time guide to scuba diving in these
caverns, Wilson doesn’t need a motmot to help him find where we are headed
today. Of the dozens of cenotes open to divers, snorkellers and swimmers, Dos
Ojos (Two Eyes) is one of the most popular; increasingly subjected to throngs
of visitors who splash around the mouths of its two caverns, or ‘eyes’. But
Wilson assures me that deep underground, its popularity is well deserved.

Article continues below

In order to get underwater before the tour
buses and dive groups from Playa del Carmen can crowd us out, we park at the
trailhead early in the morning, quickly strap on our scuba gear, and make our
way on foot down the trail to the east eye.

I notice smoke billowing up from
brush fires around the opening, and when I ask, Wilson explains that the
locals, modern-day Maya who own the land around the cenote, build the fires as
offerings to the gods. “Really?” I ask hesitantly.

“No, not really,” he laughs.
“They are for the bugs.” I slap a handful of mosquitoes slurping from my ankle.
“It’s a good story,” I counter. “You should’ve stuck with it.”

Despite the bonfires, the
mosquitoes are drinking their fill from our exposed feet and hands so we make
quick work of a backflop from the slab of limestone that overlooks the
gin-clear water, do one final gear check and slip underwater. Dropping slowly to
the floor of the pool, we fin to the tied-off guidelines that stretch into the
shadowy mouth of the cavern.

To the right, the Barbie Line
follows an easy, well-lit path that explores the entrance of the west eye. To
the left, the Bat Cave Line extends 25 metres into the opening of the submerged
cavern before hanging a sharp left into a darkened side passage. We take the
latter.

Wilson assumes the lead, hovering
skilfully half a metre above the thin rope to avoid stirring up the fine
sediment on the cavern floor, a move that would cut our visibility to nothing.
I kick gently to keep pace as we slip into the dark passageway, torch beams
bouncing off stark, white limestone formations, thick floor-to-ceiling columns
and hanging stalactites that formed eons ago before these tunnels filled with
water.

After swimming for a few minutes,
we make another left turn into a large chamber, where a narrow beam of light
coming through a small hole in the distance provides dim illumination while we
follow the contours of the wall, dipping and weaving past tumbled boulders and
towering rock formations. Eventually, the guideline slopes upwards, leading us
into the cave’s eponymous feature.

Once we fin into the Bat Cave, we
swim slowly for the surface, watching it ripple with the agitation of our
rising bubbles. And as our heads break through the water, the vast, circular
cavern expands into a dry chamber tinged green by sunlight from a small opening
in the roof. Popping up into the air pocket, I remove my regulator and take a breath
of the cool, damp air.

True to its name, the ceiling of
the cavern boasts clusters of small bats; occasionally one swan dives from its
upside-down perch and glides over the electric green pool only to arc upwards
and alight once again on the moss-covered ceiling.

All too soon, it’s now time to
turn back from this secret grotto beneath the Mexican jungle. Dropping again
below the surface, we take one last underwater tour of the chamber,
circumnavigating a jumbled pile of rock slabs that had fallen from the ceiling
to create a mesa-like mound in the centre of the room.

Along the edges, we squeeze
through a fissure beneath the limestone walls, and meandering through the tight
maze of stalactites and stalagmites, we pass underneath some of the most delicate
formations I’ve seen in any dive through these cenotes. Huge swaths of the
ceiling bristle with soda-straw stalactites, pencil-thin protrusions that
blanket the surface en-masse like beds of nails.

Eventually we reconnect with our
guideline and follow it back along the edge of the west eye. Moving slowly, we
cover the beams of our torches by holding them to our wet-suited chests. From
this vantage point, the sunlight filtering through the main entrance puts the
whole cavern in silhouette, and laser beams of light filter past the edges of
the pillars and formations that line the mouth of the cavern like a jumbled
collection of craggy teeth.

Just like that, it’s over. We
scale the limestone slab at the edge of the pool by way of a rusty swim ladder,
and Wilson matter-of-factly starts back up the trail. But I hesitate for a
moment, looking back over my shoulder. And just as I’m about to turn and leave,
I spot it again from the corner of my eye. A small blue bird, tail bouncing
disjointedly, perched on the lip of the cavern as if overseeing our departure.